The Intelligence Review | volume 1 | issue 2 |

eason, ISIS is the Islamist organization that is the most likely to develop the ability to
produce successful CBRNs (Anon. 2015).
Of all the categories of weapons included in CBRNs, chemical weapons are the easiest to
produce, but also the least deadly. With that said, militant groups do strive, through tactical
innovation, for new and more superior weapons than their own. For this reason, groups
such as these show interest in the type of weapon with the lowest lethality (Rasmussen and
Hafez 2010). Successfully mastering chemical weapons could lead them to strive for even
more deadly CBRNs. It follows that the threat of ISIS developing successful chemical
weapons over the other CBRNs is the most pressing.
Chemical weapons are categorized as either choking, blistering, blood, or nerve agents
(Schneider 2016). Most of these weapons are intended to incapacitate, not kill. ISIS has
expressed interest in both obtaining and creating its own chemical weapons since its
inception, believing that these weapons would result in rapid, overwhelming victories
against its enemies (Anon. 2015). The group’s chemical weapons program is headed by
engineers previously employed by the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, as well as from
outside the Middle East (Shachtman, Youssef and Harris 2015). However, ISIS still has
very limited success with producing even the easiest to construct and least harmful
chemical weapons (Anon. 2015).
Recent Developments
While ISIS claims to have experts working towards creating chemical weapons, the group’s
progress toward that goal has been less than impressive. This is largely due to the United
States’ active pursuit of these individuals. In January of 2015, the former Ba’athist regime
and al-Qaeda weapons engineer Abu Malik, was killed in a US airstrike (Shachtman,
Youssef and Harris 2015). His death was a major setback for ISIS’ chemical weapons
capabilities. Similarly, in March of the following year, a senior ISIS chemical weapons
developer, Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, was captured in a raid in northern Iraq (Abdula-Zahra
and George 2016). The loss of these and other scientists greatly hinders the ability of ISIS
to produce chemical weapons.
ISIS’ steady loss of territory also threatens its chemical weapons production. The most
recent example of this is in the ongoing battle for the city of Mosul. Located in northern
Iraq, Mosul is the second largest city in the country and the group’s largest stronghold
there. It has been confirmed that Mosul housed a facility dedicated to developing mustard
agent (Powell 2016). In late October of 2016, US-backed Iraqi Army, Kurdish Peshmerga
and Shiite militia forces began the assault on the city in an attempt to push the militant
group out of the city and out of Iraq as a whole (Sisk 2016). Reports have claimed that, as
a result of the offensive, ISIS had its chemical weapons program transported back to Syria
along with some senior leadership, before the fighting began.
While chemical weapons are the easiest of the CBRNs to create, they do require specialized
facilities in order to successfully produce them. Relocating an entire facility, as in the case
with Mosul, could cause serious setbacks in production. This is evidenced by the decrease
in chemical attack incidents and testing prior to the first battles for the city (Moore 2016a).
The loss of significant amounts of territory, and consequent loss of access to appropriate
facilities, hinders ISIS’ ability to successfully produce chemical weapons.
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